The Cocteau Twins ushered in 1985 with a burst of recording that took place on and around New Years' Day - the four-song Aikea-Guinea EP (BAD 501) was the result. Shortly afterwards, the group set up their own 16-track studio in an apartment that was being rented by William Orbit (best known today as the producer of Madonna's "Ray Of Light"; the Cocteaus met Orbit through Colourbox, who were then doing a lot of recording at his studio, Guerrilla). The first batch of recordings made in that new location yielded eight songs, but the material lacked the feel of an album, so the decision was made to release it as two separate EP's - Tiny Dynamine (BAD 512) and Echoes In A Shallow Bay (BAD 513) - which came out two weeks apart. The Pink Opaque (CAD 513) was a compilation album put together for Relativity Records in America. Relativity had access to CD manufacturing facilities and so The Pink Opaque became the first 4AD title to be issued in the new digital format. Assembled by Robin Guthrie, it featured tracks taken from most of their previous releases, as well as the rare "Millemillenery."
With Water (BAD 502) and Sweatbox (BAD 506), The Wolfgang Press completed the trilogy of EP's they'd begun with Robin Guthrie in 1984. At the year's end, all three EP's were compiled together on a single album and reissued as The Legendary Wolfgang Press And Other Tall Stories (CAD 514).
Xymox were an Amsterdam-based group who had attracted Ivo's attention with a mini-album, Subsequent Pleasures. The band were centred around a trio of songwriters (Pieter Nooten, Ronny Moorings and Anke Wolbert) who'd clearly learned a few lessons from their Cure and New Order records; Ivo flew them directly to Scotland, where he co-produced their first album Clan Of Xymox (CAD 503) [Confusingly, although "Clan Of Xymox" was the album title, the group subsequently adopted it as their name]. Released as a 12-inch single, "A Day" (BAD 504) featured Ivo and John Fryer's bizarre, envelope-pushing, nine-minute long remix of the album's lead track.
Dif Juz returned to 4AD (they'd released an EP on the Red Flame label in 1983) with Extractions (CAD 505), their first full-length album. Produced by Robin Guthrie, the album shows the band's sound expanding to incorporate Ritchie Thomas's saxophone and their first-ever vocal track - "Love Insane", which featured a Liz Fraser guest appearance.
Later that year, Dif Juz became involved with Jamaican dub innovator Lee "Scratch" Perry, serving as his backing band for a series of shows - eventually, they attempted to make a record together. Sadly, the five tracks that were recorded (including a lengthy version of "The Mighty Quinn") never quite gelled, despite Robin Guthrie's attempts to mix them, and the project remains unreleased.
Colourbox's newest single, "The Moon Is Blue" (BAD 507), was another radio-ready classic that despite 4AD's valiant efforts went largely unheard. By now, Martyn Young had completed work on the first, self-titled Colourbox album (CAD 508), only to realize that it contained three previously released singles ("The Moon Is Blue," "Punch" and "Say You"). To compensate fans who might already have this material, he spliced together a bonus album (MAD 509) of radical remixes, unreleased tracks and B-sides which was included with the first 10,000 copies of Colourbox.
Dead Can Dance returned late in the year with their second album, Spleen And Ideal (CAD 512). Co-produced with John Rivers (Felt), it was the first Dead Can Dance release to exploit fully the possibilities of the recording studio. And so, although they were no longer a four-piece band but simply a duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, Dead Can Dance's sound expanded dramatically, incorporating strings and brass as well as musical influences from outside both the Western Hemisphere and the 20th Century.